


In A Name

by sgt_fuckybarnes



Series: Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen or Pre-Slash, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Trans Female Character, mentions of canon-typical torture, trans girl Bucky, trans woman bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-17 09:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5864023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgt_fuckybarnes/pseuds/sgt_fuckybarnes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When James Buchanan Barnes was 6 years old, she chose a new name for herself. Just a quick drabble of transgirl!Bucky and her name, and the different meanings it has throughout her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In A Name

**Author's Note:**

> The sad lack to Transgirl!Bucky on this website was bumming me out. This is a part of a series, but doesn't take place in the same universe exactly as No You Girls.  
> Also: Tumblr user Kylotrxsh, the dude who put a post about how Bucky isn't trans into the trans Bucky tag...this one is dedicated to you, Sweatie :):):):)

When James Buchanan Barnes was 6 years old, her name is a christening, like being born all over again. All her short life, the name James followed her like a particularly aggressive storm cloud, and she got a zap of it’s lightning every time another adult pinched her cheeks, cooing over what a handsome boy she was as she tried to wriggle free from their grip.  
Her mother called her Yaakov, which was a little better for the simple reason that she didn’t know what it meant. Sometimes her little sister called her Yasha, and it made her think of Sasha Devin, a girl in her grade that smiled too much and talked to little for her taste. Still. It was a girl’s name. But she’d never thought to give herself a whole new name. That was all Steve’s idea. They were sat down on Steve’s bed, legs crisscrossed and facing each other.  
“You know what you need?” Steve had said, his eager blue eyes shining with an idea.  
“My own room?”  
Steve laughed. “No, stupid. You need a nickname. James Buch-buchan- it’s too hard to say!” he said, features screwing up in frustration as he tripped over his friend’s middle name. Her eyes lit up, and she gave Steve a big, gap toothed grin. “A nickname? Is that like a new name?” she asked excitedly. Steve nodded.  
“I hate my real name.” the young girl confessed. “James. Makes me sound like a boy. “  
Steve looked at her funny, like they used to look at the hobo on their street who talked to the lampposts. For one tense moment, James could feel herself becoming scared. Scared of what, she had no idea. But Stevie was looking at her funny and panic was seizing her insides very slowly. And then Steve laughed. “You’re funny, Buck.” He said happily.  
“Buck?” she repeated. “Well…yeah. Like Bu- uh, your middle name. You’re Buck. Buck Buck Bucks Bucky…Bucky!”  
And Bucky grinned, flinging her arms around Steve and hugging him tightly. “What’s that for?” he asked, pushing her off with a teasing laugh. “For Bucky. I like Bucky.”  
Steve smiled, a smile brilliant enough to light up New York all on it’s own. “Bucky it is.” 

When 15, everyone had forgotten her original name. At least, she hoped they had. Steve was a big help. Steve, bless him, who snapped at people with the nerve to call her James without even knowing the reason it makes her flinch like she’d been poked with a cattle prod.  
By the time Bucky is 15, her name had become her identity. Bucky. By the time she was 15, she’d started looking at boys. Her name, her precious name became a thing of beauty when gasped breathlessly against a pillow by Isaac Goldman from across the street. When it was over, he shoved her and called her something that was definitely not her name but described her just as well. He spit at her to ‘Just leave, Bucky. Please.’ And her own beautiful name became a weapon used against her.  
After that, she’d tried her hardest to pretend. She pretended she didn’t glance at attractive men in the streets, that her gaze didn’t linger on Steve’s sharp hipbone when he stepped out of the shower in nothing but a towel. She pretended that she imagined girls because she wanted them. She wanted to kiss them, to touch them and slip her fingers (moisturized and painted with clear nail polish, just to help her peace of mind) underneath their pretty pink panties and make them cry out her name.  
She almost managed to convince herself, when she felt the rush of satisfaction as Ellen Stein (A nice Jewish girl, she’d be good for you, Yasha) gasped loudly, writhing around on Bucky’s bed in pleasure.  
“Oh! Oh, god Bucky…” she whined. Her voice was pitched up a few octaves than was usual, and Bucky briefly wondered if she could teach her how to do that.  
Bucky had felt pleasure too, the likes of which she’d never felt outside of her own hand, with thoughts of sharp blue eyes and long, thin fingers floating through her mind as she brought herself off.  
“Oh…oh, Jesus…” Ellen moaned. Bucky smirked, bringing herself back into the present moment, back to her carefully constructed persona. “Actually, the name’s Bucky. But I won’t say I’ve never heard the comparison.” She teased, leaning down to press a kiss against the underside of Ellen’s jaw.  
“James Barnes, I swear if I- oh…if your fingers weren’t in my pussy I’d slap you so hard.” She threatened breathily.  
Bucky flinched, her fingers stilling inside of Ellen. By god, she hadn’t slapped Bucky, but it hurt like a bitch. 

 

When Bucky is 20 years old, her name was a heart attack. She’d done what she’s supposed to in her life. She’d done what she had to. She got a job at the docks, slicked her hair back and went dancing with girls every other night. Her name is the only connection to the truth she’d discovered about herself. She was not the man that everyone wants her to be. She moved in with Steve, and it was exactly 1 year and 3 months before he noticed the box of dirt-cheap dresses and stolen lipstick in the back of the closet.  
“Hey Buck?” he asked, looking up at her in confusion. She cursed herself for not hiding her happy box better, leaving it in the closet where Steve Fucking Rogers could find it while looking for his only good pair of shoes.  
“Uh…yeah, Stevie?” she asked, putting on her best innocent smile. The kind she flashed the rabbi when he found her making out with his daughter, or the kind he gave old man O’Connell after he’d stolen milk from his general store.  
Steve saw through that smile in a minute.  
“Hey, is this stuff Becca’s? You should remember to give it back to her.” He said, indicating to Bucky’s box. He was partially right. Many of the clothes in the box were stolen from Bucky’s little sister, once she was done wearing them.  
“…Yeah, sure. I’ll make sure to…to drop them off when I go over to dinner on Friday.” She muttered, playing with the hem of her worn-out work shirt.  
She prayed to whatever was up there that Steve wouldn’t dig further into the box, but she should’ve known better. What god in their right mind would grant a miracle just to help a lying queer keep lying?  
Steve dug further into the box, trying to see if there was anything in there they could sell. Maybe something too small for Rebecca that the neighbor girls might like.  
“Uh…Bucky?” he said again, a little more hesitant this time. “Yeah Stevie?” she asked. She could feel her hands shaking, so she shoved them in her pockets. Maybe if Steve didn’t notice her state of mind, she could lie her way out of his.  
“Are these Becca’s?” he asked, holding up a pair of lacy cream panties. Shit.  
“No, no those…those aren’t Becca’s.” she admitted, her face hot with shame. Bucky wasn’t stupid, she knew what was about to happen. Because Steve, he was the smartest guy she knew, and they’d known each other since kindergarten. He saw through Bucky’s bullshit a mile away. But to her surprise, Steve didn’t ask. He simply pursed his lips into a thin line, and put the panties back into the box where they belonged. 

 

When she was 26, her name was a ghost. In the army she didn’t have the luxury of being anything other than what they make her into. She didn’t have the luxury of being a girl, not in the skin-tight uniform that made her feel like she was wearing one of her father’s old suits. Not with the stiff, regulation haircut slicked back against her skull and certainly not with everyone calling her ‘James’.  
It was almost a relief when she was captured. At first she fought back, spitting curses at the scientists in German and Yiddish, hoping they understood her contempt and her loathing. It changed nothing. They forced her onto a sterile white table, and injected her with chemical after chemical. They all smelled like the clinic two blocks from her house that Steve always winded up in when he was sick.  
Steve. God, she missed Steve more than she ever thought a person could miss another. Every time those scientists came near her, with vials and syringes full of whatever-the-fuck, she closed her eyes and concentrated on Steve. Steve who’d had a million shots in his life before he even hit double digits, stubborn stupid Steve who constantly scared off Death himself with a dirty look.  
After a week of electric shocks and pain beyond description, she found she could no longer remember what colour his eyes were. She found she could no longer conjure up his face in her mind, just a ghost of angry eyes and a strong chin and glittering blonde hair. And it killed her. She hated to part with any knowledge about Steve, and she quickly learned that whatever they were doing to her was affecting her memory. She practiced reciting her identification number in case she was rescued. Not that she really believed she would be rescued.  
She didn’t remember how long she’d been there, and by then she didn’t remember her name. She knew that she was 26 years old. She knew she was a sergeant, because that was all the scientists ever referred to her as. Sergeant. She knew that she was a girl, despite what everything else seemed to be telling her. Beyond that- it was a blank. Sometimes if she strained, she could get just a wisp of blonde hair, or a smile that reminded her of home, wherever that was.  
She lied on that table for another two weeks. And then there was Steve- big and strong but still overwhelmingly Steve despite it all. “I thought you were dead.” He said, and Bucky could just here the relief in his voice. At least someone would have missed her. “I thought you were smaller.” She murmured, trying to sit up. And then he smiled at her, and threw his arm around her shoulder to help her get up. “I missed you, Bucky.” He said. And for a minute there, things seemed like they were gonna be okay. 

 

When Bucky is 27 years old, her name is a faded memory, long gone to HYDRA brainwashing. Although it’s only been a year, any sense of self the Asset may have developed it quickly and efficiently wiped away. Armin Zola theorized that this is partially due to how fragile her sense of self was before. He’d heard her desperate mutterings while she was on the operating table- he’d heard of her specific kind of mentality only in cursed mutterings, but if it gifted them with the Asset, he supposed it couldn’t have been entirely bad.  
The first time they sent her out on a mission was in 1952. She was efficient and clean, didn’t even flinch when the man’s lifeblood dripped onto her metal fingers.  
“You did good work, today.” An agent promised her, his voice low so as not to startle her. She’d been known to snap when startled. She arched one eyebrow, her head cocking to the side like a dog’s. That was all she was those days, anyways.  
“Sit here, James. I’ll get a superior officer to gat your mission report.” The agent murmured. He didn’t look her in the eyes, they never looked her in the eyes. “James?” she asked. She didn’t remember the name, couldn’t possibly connect it in her mind to her own self. “Who is James?” she asked again. She was pushing, she knew that. She wasn’t supposed to ask questions. The first rule of her life at hydra. The agent bit his lip, looking at the Asset almost like he was afraid. “James is nobody. I was just confusing you with another agent.” He replied smoothly. It was a lie, the Asset knew it was a lie, she wasn’t stupid. But the name made her flinch like she was being branded with a cattle prod (she’d felt it before, and she wasn’t eager to again) so she didn’t comment.  
“You’re not to mention the name James ever again, is that absolutely clear?” the agent demanded of her. She nodded, like the obedient idiot that she was. “What if one of my targets is called James? What should I do then?” she asked innocently.  
Normally, she wouldn’t dare make a comment so obviously sarcastic, she knew full well what it would get her. Perhaps the name had woken something in her. The agent gave her a withering look. “You are not to mention the name James in the context of yourself.” He clarified.  
The Asset nodded. This time she meant it, without question. She didn’t want that searing agitation of a name anywhere near her.  
She pretended this was out of loyalty to her handlers. 

 

When she was 28- no, when she was 98, her name was a homecoming.  
Her name was the final crack in a dam that had been breaking the moment she saw Steve on that bridge. He said her name once, when he’d first seen her in awe and shock and something she now recognized as grief. Bucky.  
The word was one of the only things that fueled her forwards when she fled from hydra. She started with research, digging up everything she could on James Buchanan Barnes. It was wrong, it all felt so wrong compared to how she saw herself. She wondered briefly is she’d always been so…wrong. when it came to her own perception of herself. Or if it was hydra’s doing.  
That thought was the furthest on her mind, though. Bucky finally knew who she was, for the first time in 70 years. She was Bucky Barnes, Howling Commando and kicker of Nazi ass. She was 98 years old, and she belonged to (Or associated with, or was in love with) Steven Grant Rogers. Whom she hadn’t seen in a year. (Her brain helpfully informed her that it had been a year, three months, and 18 days. Her brain is an asshole.)  
She followed him, of course. She had to, knowing his record of getting into every bit of trouble he could find. She had to protect him, whether out of gratitude for saving her or loyalty to him she couldn’t say.  
It took the idiot almost 9 months to realize he was being stalked. When he finally came to the realization, he knew it was her. He had to know who it was.  
She left him a message just in case.  
A hydra agent who attacked him in his apartment only three days before, dead on the doorsteps of his apartment building. Police say he must have fallen out the window; there wasn’t any sign of forced entry.  
Because Bucky was good at her job. Just to reassure her old friend it wasn’t a senseless murder, she’d dragged out every scrap of information to prove the man’s involvement with hydra and printed it to his computer. That was enough to get Steve’s attention.  
He’d finally even noticed Bucky outside his windows at night, sitting silently on his balcony. She thought maybe she should give him an award of some kind.  
“Bucky.” He murmured, like he was in shock. Bucky almost smiled, that one word- her name being spoken like that always made her smile. Especially when it’s been so long since she’d heard it.  
“Bucky…are you ready to come home?” Steve asked, and Bucky knew it wasn’t so much a question as it was a plea. She’d seen enough broken begging as the Winter Soldier to understand. This was the first time she’d ever been pleaded with to stay, and it made her feel warm in ways she hadn’t felt for decades.  
She stepped forward hesitantly, into Steve’s open arms, quite literally. She found herself clinging to his neck and simply inhaling his scent. Cherries and smoke and spearmint. “Yeah. Stevie. I’m ready.” She murmured, like she had a choice. Like she had any power to resist him.  
“You know, Bucky…I’m really glad you’re not dead.” Steve said, a hint of teasing in his voice.  
And his pretty pink mouth over the syllables of the name she chose for herself, well…  
That was all the home she needed.


End file.
